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Q&A: PDF- a Solution to Production Problems?
Q: Can I do color seps from an Acrobat file?
A: Yes, but only extensive testing in the actual production environment in which you work can lead to an effective assessment of overall reliability of results from this, or any color separation and prepress production software. There are many variables: the printer's Raster Image Processor, the software (and patches!) you use, the operating system, printer driver, fonts, etc., etc.
With that said, we can make some general observations about the behavior of Acrobat 4.0-distilled PDF files and how they behave when imported or placed in various applications:
PDF Import results:
Test File #1: Sep99p3.pdf (Color, 2 page)
Import in FreeHand 8 = poor. Very, very slow import. Warned of 11 missing fonts and identified. Incorrectly specified bounding box, some elements displayed off page. PDF multipage import displayed page 2 incorrectly; page 1 similar to Illustrator, below. Image on page 2 missing some elements, some areas on both pages displyed as black box.
Place in Illustrator 8 = Fair. Fast import. Warned of missing fonts but did not identify. Some screen redraw issues (solved by toggling control/command-Y). Image missing bounding box, some elements displayed off page. PDF multipage import option.
Place in Adobe InDesign = Excellent. Fast import. Warned of Bookman Demi font. Image imported perfectly, with multipage and cropping options. Advises use of Adobe PostScript driver 4.3 or newer for best results. Supports in-RIP trapping, color seps, etc.
Place in Adobe Photoshop 4.0 = Fair. Slow import. Warned of missing fonts. Image imported with incorrect font spacing, but good quality graphics and correct cropping.
QuarkXPress: PDF import requires QXP 4.02 or newer. See Question #3, below.
CorelDraw: Click here for details.
We had much better results when using the Export function of Acrobat Exchange 4.0 to save EPS files, and then placing these files in color-sep applications.
FreeHand worked very well in this regard, as we expect any application capable of reliable CMYK separation out would. As with all EPS files, it is important to run pre-flighting software such as Extensis PreFlight Pro to determine missing or potentially problematic fonts, graphics or other issues.
We used the following settings, as per Adobe's notes:
PostScript Level 3 is only required when sending PDFs directly to print. When exporting EPS, you have an option to save the file with Level 1 or Level 2 encoding, in ASCII or binary formats. Virtually all PostScript printers can accept Level 1/ASCII.
You can also elect to export a page at a time, or a range of pages, as with most printing situations.
There is also an option (in Document Info > Prepress...) to override the file's embedded 4-color ICC profiles with DeviceCMYK settings. Use with caution.
As with all advanced prepress applications, color separation procedures and optimal settings vary from application to application. Consult a prepress expert or graphic service bureau for further information.
Q: I've been trying to use PDF as a method of "printing to a file," but the pagination ends up wrong. What's happening?
A: In the book entitled "The PDF Bible," which is very comprehensive, method is presented whereby you print directly to a postscript file (usually labeled with a .prn extension). Then you open that file in Acrobat Distiller and distill it. The method is not without its tricks though. For instance, when you set up the Adobe postscript printer driver, you must check the font substitution menu (hard to describe unless you are doing it). Some of the fonts I was using were not being substituted in the default version of this and thus were being garbled in the distillation. But after my sixth install of the printer driver, I stumbled across a setup that works.
I must say I am a bit disappointed in having to jump through all of these hoops. I would have thought that Adobe would consider that a lot of documents are created in Word, and therefore a lot of translations to pdf could occur. I would think that a bit more work on their part would make this a more seamless process. And as the Adobe tech told me, they get 1 or 2 inquiries a week about this problem, so I am not the only one! As it was, it took me nearly 3 hours to convert 40 or so fairly simple word documents to pdf. But am I happy to be able to do it!
(Solution provided by derr...@apl.ca)
Q: Can I import PDFs into QuarkXPress or CorelDraw?
A: Yes -- although there are a few caveats. A PDF import/export filter from Quark is available for QuarkXPress 4 at http://www.quark.com/files/xtquarkxts_40.html. However, this filter conflicts with Quark's CMS XTension and handles only single-page PDFs. A beta version of an updated PDF Import/Export Filter QuarkXTension fixes the CMS conflict and allows you to save a page or range of pages from a QuarkXPress 4 document as a PDF file. However, bleed functionality is currently disabled in this beta.
A licensing agreement with Adobe Systems Inc. allowed Corel to integrate Adobe's Acrobat Placed PDF Library into Corel's graphics and desktop publishing products. An update to the program, adding PDF functionality to CorelDRAW 8, Corel VENTURA 8 and (allegedly) the company's version of CorelDRAW 8 for Power Macintosh. Announced in June 1998, the free enhancement is now available to Windows users of CorelDRAW 8 for download from Corel's FTP site at http://www.corel.com/support/ftpsite/pub/coreldraw/draw8suite/index.htm. This functionality is also included in CorelDraw 9 for 32-bit Windows PCs. We have not tested the Macintosh version.
With the update, users of CorelDRAW 8 and Corel VENTURA 8 are able to place pages from any Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file into their native Corel documents with a high-resolution preview. When printed to a PostScript device, the placed PDF page should look exactly as it originated. Additionally, users can place multiple PDF and EPS pages within a document and use Corel's powerful built-in layout and imposition tools to design n-up and other professional signatures, preview them on-screen, and print them to an imagesetter or any other device.
Q: I want my clients to be able to write PDFs, but Acrobat Distiller isn't freely distributable. Is there a low-cost or free solution?
A: Mark McIntosh (mmci...@islandnet.com) notes that Ghostscript, a free Postscript interpreter, can write PDF files. It can also view them. On Windows, he adds, it has a reasonably nice GUI frontend called GhostView.
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
"It's not fancy," says Mark, "but I have been able to print to a file with a Windows Postscript printer driver, then use GhostView to preview the Postscript file and produce a PDF file."
He also noticed this interesting site among the links on the Ghostscript page: http://www.sanface.com/
For Further Reading
- Add-ons for Adobe-Acrobat - a roundup of color separation, imposition and preflighting tools.
- Review: Acrobat 4.0 adds to its PDF repertoire
- Techniques - a collection of hot graphics tips and cool techniques
- Printers - Ink-jet printers and color lasers.
- Graphics - Reviews of 2D and 3D graphics software packages, scanners, monitors and more.
- Storage - Mass storage solutions for PC and Mac, including CD-R, Zip, optical media, SparQ, LS-120 and much more.
Press release: Corel integrates Adobe® PDF Technology into Graphics and DTP products
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